To understand how I ended up dreaming of ProZ last Thursday night (8/14), you have to know about the events leading up to it and the main actors in the French Forum.

First, meet Alain. I have nicknamed him "ti landeng". If there ever was such a thing as a "dancing word", that would be it, for this Creole expression brings to mind the image of a hyper and naturally curious character, with all the trepidation.
He has brought to us the haiku fever, the icon fever, and in that thread, the smilies fever.

Jean-Luc: He is the king of puns and well-documented references. He always brings to us very interesting links. He can also wear the label since his natural curiosity and cunning manner to find out about things and present them to us, make him a personification of that character. He does his "prep" work before posting or replying to any thread, as that particular one proves it, and his response in Krik? Krak!

Thierry: I consider him a kind of 'storyteller'. He has his own way of telling his personal anecdotes, but for the purpose of this summary, I'll dub him the third "ti landeng" because such person is usually the "source of a chain reaction event". Indeed, he is the one who has triggered the most unexpected twist in a forum. What he brought upon us on Thursday was the Creole fever from an unlikely speaker.

All three share a bit of the "ti landeng" definition. Now we have our threesome : "ti landeng".

Flashback to Thursday, 8/14/03:
That day was the most intense one for me. I actively participated in different ProZ fora.
Later on, I read a posting by Jean-Luc titled "Matrice des pays antillais" (The Mother figure of Caribbean countries). He opened it up by paying tribute to my homeland so rich culturally yet so poor economically.

That's how it all started.

The first person to answer was Thierry, and he did so by throwing in 3 Creole words. Caught up by surprise, I had no alternative but to follow suit in my vernacular as well. I felt compelled to launch an impromptu Creole contest for the person who would have guessed the meaning of the sentences I had written. Almost immediately, JL comes up with his translations, and -- to my amazement -- they were accurate! Last but not least, joining in the excitement, was Claudia. She announced the stunning news that she had: "A haiku in Creole". She could not have imagined that what she was bringing on the table was a salacious piece, which put me in the awkward position of having to give semi-graphic explanations of what the "ploge" dance was.

That's when I knew that the post was off to a good start.

That's when I realized, this was becoming a one-of-a kind cultural experience for our French-speaking community.

Topping it off, was a ProZ mail job proposal I received a few hours later by one of the gallery director which Jean-Luc has mentioned at the beginning!!
Not surprising at all, my subconscious had to transpose into oneiric form the ProZ Forum OverdoZ of the day. I'll tell you about the dream later.

I will spare you all the surprising details, twists and turns of this extraordinary posting. In short, the one-person contest turned into a formal competition with 3 winners. I was wearing many hats playing the interpreter/translator role, the tourist guide, the cultural awareness instructor, the language teacher, recipe giver and music reviewer.

Signs of the smilies fever are visible on page 2, but the festival of the other kind, well, let's say, the real show starts on page 3. Even though non-French speakers will miss out on the very interesting exchange, there are some English excerpts at the end. If that's your case, go straight to page 3 to start your journey.

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Aurora HumaránArgentina Local time: 17:02 English to Spanish + ...

:-)

Aug 23, 2003

CHENOUMI wrote:

Vive l'échange culturel entre les peuples!

Hi Sandra!

I understand very little of "the most surprising and eye-catching posting ever", but...I feel that the idea you try to convey comes through, in spite of the language differences, somehow...

By the way...the pictures are amazing. Él Árbol de la Vida (that is the translation, right?) is BEAUTIFUL.

Yes, this site is a unique place. Yesterday a prozian from India contacted me to talk about...Latin American writers. Isn´t that great?

Au (tradosing = under mouse arrest)

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xxxCHENOUMI English to French + ...

TOPIC STARTER

ProZ postings are like a box of chocolates...

Aug 24, 2003

... you never know what you're going to get!

Hi Aurora,

Getting you was a pleasure.

"the most surprising and eye-catching" was in reference to JL's posting of course, not this one.
Thanks for showing your appreciation.

AURORA HUMARAN wrote:

By the way...the pictures are amazing. Él Árbol de la Vida (that is the translation, right?) is BEAUTIFUL.

Yes, that's "Árbol de vida".

Yes, this site is a unique place. Yesterday a prozian from India contacted me to talk about...Latin American writers. Isn´t that great?

Yes, it is. :^)

Thanks for showing your appreciation.

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xxxCHENOUMI English to French + ...

TOPIC STARTER

The dream

Aug 24, 2003

I don't have a clear recollection of the whole dream. This is what I'm remembering.

"I saw Mr. Dotterer seated behind a big curtain and leaning over what seemed to be a table. There was a slide projector to his right on top of a tall four-drawer chest.
Some activities were going on upstairs. I went up, it was about improving the "Featured Pro" segment. They appeared bigger on a flat screen with 2 blinking ads for each one of them.

The first one read: FOCUS on XXCUS. or XXCUS on FOCUS. I can't remember the other word, but it was also a 5-letter word which rhymed with "focus". It was a very catchy phrase. The slogan was the same for each one of us, and on top of the picture, to the right, there was a that read: on my way."

Perhaps a silly dream. When I woke up last Friday, I questioned myself about the dream: What was happening to me? I dedicated way too much time to this site... Is that it?"

And I promised some restraint to myself. Back home they would say: "What? You dreamt of a web site?" - "Lòlòy ou vire" (You have lost your mind!)

I hate to look silly, because I'm not.

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